Chapter VIII: Part 8

It was during the 1945-1946 season, for example, that I engaged Tamara Toumanova as a guest artist. In addition to appearing in _Swan Lake_, _Les Sylphides_, and various classical _pas de deux_, I had Bronislava Nijinska stage a short work she called _Harvest Time_, to the music of Henri Wieniawski, orchestrated by Antal Dorati, in which Toumanova appeared with John Kriza, supported by a small _corps de ballet_. The association, I fear, was not too happy for any of us, including the “Black Pearl.” There was a resentment towards her on the part of some of the artists, and Toumanova, over-anxious to please, almost literally danced her head off; but the atmosphere was not conducive to her best work.

Having watched Toumanova from childhood, knowing her as I do, it is not easy, nor is it a simple matter for me to draw an objective portrait of her, as she is today. One thing I shall _not_ do, and that is to go very deeply into biographical background. That she was born in a box-car in Siberia, while her parents were escaping into China from the Russian Revolution, is a tale too often told--as are the stories of her beginnings as a dancer in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska, and an appearance at the Paris Trocadero on a Pavlova programme, at the age of five or so.

It was her father, Vadim Boretszky-Kasadevich, who called a temporary halt to the child prodigy business, by insisting that dance be suspended for a year until she could do some school work.

Discovered at Preobrajenska’s school by George Balanchine, he placed her with the de Basil company, and for a half-dozen years she remained there, save for a brief interlude with Balanchine’s short-lived _Les Ballets 1933_.

It was that same year that I brought the de Basil company to America the first time, where she joined the trinity of “baby ballerinas”--Baronova and Riabouchinska, of course, being the other two. It is a matter of history how Toumanova became the American rotogravure editors’ delight; how America became Toumanova-conscious.

Strong, remarkably strong though her technique was even in those days, her performances were frequently uneven. Toumanova was a temperamental dancer then, as now, and to those who know only her svelte, slender, mature beauty of today, there may be some wonder that in those days she had to fight a recurring tendency towards _embonpoint_, and excessive _embonpoint_. But there were always startling brilliancies. In _Jeux d’Enfants_ and _Cotillon_, I remember the dazzling _fouetées_. It is one of Toumanova’s boasts that she was the first dancer to do thirty-two double _fouetées_ and sixteen triples in actual performance. I am not an authority on these technical matters and can, therefore, merely record the statement.

Her unsuccessful Broadway appearance (a musical called _Stars in Your Eyes_) was followed by a reunion with the de Basil Company in Australia and a short season with him at the Hollywood Theatre, in New York; and there was a later sojourn with the Massine Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then Hollywood beckoned. There was one film in which she played an acting part, _Days of Glory_. The picture was certainly not much to talk about, but she married the producer-writer, Casey Robinson.

Since then, she has turned up as guest-artist with one organization after another: the Paris Opera Ballet, the Marquis de Cuevas company, Anton Dolin’s Festival Ballet in London, the San Francisco Civic Ballet; a nomadic balletic existence, interrupted by another Hollywood film appearance, this time in the role of Pavlova in _Tonight We Sing_, based on my earlier book, _Impresario_.

As a person there is something about her that is at once naive and ingenuous and, at the same time, deep and grave and tragic. She cries still when she is happy, and is also able to cry when she is sad. She adores to be praised; but, unlike some other dancers I know, she is also anxious for criticism. She solicits it. And when she feels the criticism is sound, she does her best to correct--at least for the moment--the faults that have prompted it. Her devotion to her mother--“Mamochka”--herself an attractive, voluble, and highly emotional woman, is touching and sometimes a shade pathetic. Toumanova’s whole life, career, and story have been, for the most part, the thrice-familiar tale of the White Russian _émigré_. Like all _émigré_ stories, hers is extremely sentimental. Sentiment and sentimentality play a big part in Tamara’s life.

She is, I feel, unbreakable, unquenchable. She is, in her maturity, even more beautiful than she was as a “baby ballerina.” She is, I suppose, precisely the popular conception of what a glamorous _ballerina_ is, or at least should be. Her personality is that of a complete theatrical extrovert. The last row of the gallery is her theatre target. Hers is not a subtle personality. It is a sort of motion picture idea of a _ballerina assoluta_, a sort of reincarnation of the fascinating creatures from whose carriages adoring balletomanes unhitched the horses and hauled them to Maxim’s for supper, dining the course of which the creatures were toasted in vintage champagne drunk from slippers. It doesn’t really matter that her conception is a bit dated. With Toumanova it is effective.

Tamara’s conception of the ballerina in these terms is deliberate. She admits her desire is to smash the audience as hard as she can. With her a straight line is veritably the shortest distance between two points, and no _ballerina_ makes the distance between herself and her audience so brief. This conception has been known to lead to overacting and to the ignoring of the colleagues with whom she is dancing at the time.

There is with her, as ever, great charm, an eager enthusiasm, and I am happy to say, a fine sense of loyalty. This is a quality I particularly appreciate. It has been shown to me on more than one occasion. When I brought the Paris Opera Ballet for the New York City Festival, Tamara was not nor had she been at that time a member of the Paris Opera Company. She barely knew Lifar, yet it was she who became his champion in New York. It was a calculated risk to her career which she took, because she respected Lifar as an artist, did not believe the stories about him, and was interested in fair play.

As I watch Toumanova today, I see but an extension in time, space and years of the “baby ballerina” in her adult personality; there is still an extravagant and dazzling glamor; there is still steely technique; there is still a childlike naivete about her, even when she tries to be ever so sophisticated; everything about her is still dramatic and dramatized. And there is still “Mamochka,” in constant attendance, helping, criticizing, urging; and although Tamara has been happily married for a decade or so, “Mamochka” is still the watchdog. Many ballet “mamas” are not only difficult, but some of them are overtly disliked. Toumanova’s mother is another category. She has been at all times a fine and constructive help to Tamara, both with practical assistance and theoretical advice.

Tamara’s approach to the dance is beautiful to observe. Her devotion to ballet amounts almost to a religion. Nothing under the sun is more important to her than her work, her attendance at lessons. Nothing ever is permitted to interfere with these.

I firmly believe that such is her concentration and devotion to her work that, if a fire were to break out back-stage during a performance while Tamara was in the midst of her fabulous _fouetées_, she would continue with them, completely unperturbed, more intent on _fouetées_ than on fire.

The Montreal discussions with the Ballet Theatre direction on the subject of guest stars produced no understanding of the situation; only the tiresomely reiterated, “It’s a sacrilege! It’s a crime!”

What was a “crime” then, was a sheer necessity. Let us look, for a moment, at the Ballet Theatre situation today, after it is no longer under my management, but entirely on its own, responsible for its own destiny. During the last year of our association, following the resignation of J. Alden Talbot as managing director, as I have pointed out, Lucia Chase, who pays the bills, and Oliver Smith became joint managing directors. They were running the company when we came to a parting of the ways. It was they who protested most bitterly over the guest-star system. Now, with the company, after thirteen years of existence, presumably established, Miss Chase is firmly perpetrating the same “crime” herself. I certainly do not object to it. But surely what was a “sacrilege,” what was a “crime” at the time I was responsible for their perpetration, must, now that the Ballet Theatre is on its own, no longer be either sacrilegious or criminal.

Another recurring trouble source and the cause of many a contentious discussion was the question of new productions. The arguments and conferences over them were seemingly endless. Now the question of new productions is one of the most vital and important in ballet management, and one of the most pressing. All ballet management contracts call for a ballet company to supply a certain number of new works each year. The reason for this is that there must be a constant flow of new ballets in a repertoire in order to attract the attention of both the critics and the public. Standard works form the core of any repertoire and at least one is necessary on every programme. But ballet itself, in order to keep from becoming stagnant, must refresh itself by constantly expanding its repertoire. Frequently, in contrast to the undying classics, nothing can be deader than last years “novelty.” My contractual arrangement provides that the management shall have the right either to accept or reject new work as being acceptable or otherwise.

As time went on, many of the new works produced, some of which were accepted by me against my sounder judgment, proved, as I feared, to be unacceptable to the general public throughout the country. It should be clearly understood that ballet cannot live on New York alone. America is a large continent, and the hinterland audiences, while lacking, perhaps, some of the quality of sophistication of metropolitan audiences, are highly selective and quite as critical today as are their New York counterparts. A New York success is by no means an assurance of a like reception in Kalamazoo or Santa Barbara. Ballet needs both Santa Barbara and Kalamazoo, as it needs New York. The building of repertoire should be the joint task of the company direction and the management--since their desired ends are the same, viz., the successful continuation of the organization. Repertoire is a responsible and exceedingly demanding task.

It certainly required no clairvoyance on my part to discern a very definite antagonism toward any repertoire suggestions I offered. Certain types of ballets were badly needed and were not forthcoming. Perhaps I can most clearly illustrate my point by recapitulating the Ballet Theatre repertoire at the time we parted company.

There were: Fokine’s heritage--_Les Sylphides_, _Carnaval_, (no longer in repertoire), _Petroushka_ (no longer in repertoire), _Spectre de la Rose_ (no longer in repertoire), plus two creations, _Bluebeard_, and _Russian Soldier_ (no longer in repertoire). Andrée Howard had staged _Death and the Maiden_ and _Lady Into Fox_ (both dropped before I took over the company). Bronislava Nijinska had revived _La Fille Mal Gardée_ and _The Beloved One_ (no longer in the repertoire). Anton Dolin had revived _Swan Lake_, _Giselle_ (now performed in a Balanchine version), _Princess Aurora_ (now touched up by Balanchine), and had created _Quintet_ (dropped after the first season), _Capriccioso_ (dropped in the second season), _Pas de Quatre_ (now done in a version by Keith Lester), and _Romantic Age_ (no longer in the repertoire). Leonide Massine had revived _The Fantastic Toy Shop_, _Capriccio Espagnol_, and _The Three-Cornered Hat_ (all out of repertoire). He had produced three new works, _Don Domingo_, _Aleko_, and _Mlle. Angot_, none of which was retained in the repertoire. Antony Tudor had revived _The Lilac Garden_, _Judgment of Paris_, _Dark Elegies_, _Gala Performance_, and had produced _Pillar of Fire_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Dim Lustre_, and _Undertow_, none of which remain. Agnes de Mille had produced _Black Ritual_, _Three Virgins and a Devil_, and _Tally-Ho_, none of which is actively in the repertoire. José Fernandez had produced a Spanish work, _Goyescas_, which lasted only the first season. David Lichine had revived _Graduation Ball_, and had produced _Helen of Troy_ and _Fair at Sorotchinsk_ (the latter no longer in repertoire). Adolph Bolm had revived his _Ballet Mecanique_ (first season life only), produced _Peter and the Wolf_, a perennial stand-by, and the short-lived version of _Firebird_. John Taras had contributed _Graziana_, and Simon Semenoff a version of _Coppélia_ and _Gift of the Magi_, neither of the three existing today. Jerome Robbins’s _Fancy Free_ and _Interplay_ remain while his _Facsimile_ has been forgotten. Balanchine had revived _Apollo_, _Errante_, and had produced _Waltz Academy_, all of which have disappeared.

In order to save the curious reader the trouble of any computation, this represents a total of fifty-one ballets either produced during my association with Ballet Theatre or else available at the time we joined hands. From this total of fifty-one, a round dozen are performed, more or less, today. A cursory glance will reveal that the repertoire was always deficient in classical works. They are the backbone of ballet. It is to be regretted that the Tudor ballets, which were the particular glory of Ballet Theatre, have been lost to the public.

I shall not labor the point of our differences, save to cite one work as an example. That is the production of _Firebird_. This was the first Stravinsky ballet for Diaghileff, and was first revealed in Fokine’s original production at the Paris Opera in the Diaghileff season of 1910, with Tamara Karsavina in the title role, Fokine himself as the handsome Tsarevich, Enrico Cecchetti as the fearsome Kastchei, and Vera Fokina as the beautiful Tsarevna whom the Tsarevich marries at the end. In later productions Adolph Bolm took Fokine’s place as the Tsarevich. The original settings and costumes were by Golovine. For a later Diaghileff revival the immensely effective production by Nathalie Gontcharova was created. This was the production revealed here by the de Basil company, a quite glorious spectacle.

_Firebird_ had always been a popular work when well done. From a musical point of view it has been one of the most popular works in the Stravinsky catalogue, both in orchestral programmes and over the radio. One of the surest ways to attract the public to ballet is through musical works of established popularity. This does not mean works that are cheap or vulgar, for vulgarity and popularity are by no stretch of the imagination synonymous: it means _Swan Lake_, _The Nutcracker_, _The Sleeping Beauty_, _Schéhérazade_, _Coppélia_, _Petroushka_, _Firebird_--I mention only a few--the music of which has become familiar, well-known, and loved through the medium of radio and gramophone recordings. This is the music that brings people to ballets of which it is a part.

Miss Chase was flatly opposed to _Firebird_. Her co-director had no choice but to follow her lead. I was insistent that _Firebird_ be given as one of the new productions required under our contract for the season 1945-1946; and then the trouble began in earnest.

There were various dissident elements in the Ballet Theatre organization, as there are in all ballet companies. These elements had no very clear idea of what they wanted, or for what they stood. Their vision was cloudy, their aims vague, their force puny. The company lacked not only any artistic policy, but also a managing director capable of formulating one, and able to mould these various dissident elements into what Miss Chase liked to call her “organic whole.”

With the exception of J. Alden Talbot and German Sevastianov, there had never been a managing director or manager worthy of the title or the post. During the Talbot regime, my relations with the Ballet Theatre were at their highest level. I always found Talbot helpful, understanding towards our mutual problems, cooperative, of assistance in many ways. Because of his belief in the organization and his genuine love for ballet, Talbot gave his services as general manager without fee or compensation of any sort other than the pleasure of helping the company. It is almost entirely thanks to Talbot that _Fancy Free_ achieved production. Talbot was also instrumental in founding and maintaining an organization known as _Ballet Associates_, later to become _Ballet Associates in America_, since the function of the society is to cultivate ballet in general in America in the field of understanding, and, more specifically and particularly, to encourage, promote and foster those creative workers whose artistic collaboration makes ballet possible, viz., choreographers, composers, and designers. The practical function of the society is very practical indeed, for it means finding that most necessary fuel: money. The organization, through the actively moving spirit of J. Alden Talbot, sponsored by substantial contributions no less than four Ballet Theatre productions: Tudor’s _Pillar of Fire_ and _Romeo and Juliet_, Agnes de Mille’s _Tally-Ho_, and Dolin’s _Romantic Age_. It was entirely responsible for Michael Kidd’s _On Stage!_

A cultured, able gentleman of charm, taste, and sensitivity, J. Alden Talbot was the only person associated with Ballet Theatre direction able to give it a sound direction, since he was able not only to shape a definite policy, which is vastly important, but also to give it a sound business management.

Following Talbot’s departure, there came frequent changes in management, changes seemingly made largely for purely personal reasons. At the time of the stresses and strains over the inclusion of _Firebird_ into the repertoire, although Lucia Chase and Oliver Smith were the titular managing directors, there was no head to the organization and no director or direction, in fact. Actually, caprice was at the helm and Ballet Theatre had a flapping rudder, a faulty compass, with Chase and Smith taking turns at the wheel trying to keep the badly listing ship into the wind. Acting as manager was a former stage-manager, without previous experience or any knowledge whatever of the intricate problems of business management. With the enthusiasm of an earnest Boy Scout, he commenced a barrage of bulletins and directives, and ludicrously introduced calisthenics classes for the dancers, complete with dumb-bells, down to the institution of his own conception of the “Stanislavsky” method of dramatic expression, the latter taking the form of setting the company to acting out charades on the trains while on tour.

Coincidental with this was increased intrigue and the outward expression of his theme song, which he chanted to all within earshot, the burden of which was: “How can we get rid of Hurok? How can we get rid of Hurok? Who needs him?”

The question of the _Firebird_ production was, as I have suggested, the most contentious and controversial of any that arose in my relationships with Ballet Theatre.

_Firebird_ was hounded by troubles of almost every description, as each day upturned them. Its production was marked by disputes, aggravations, and untold difficulties from first to last. If history is to be believed, that sort of thing has been its lot from its inception in the Diaghileff days of 1910.

The Adolph Bolm production eventually reached the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, after a series of vicissitudes, on the night of the 24th October, 1945, with Alicia Markova in the title role, and Anton Dolin in the role of Ivan Tsarevich, originally danced in the Diaghileff production by Michel Fokine.

The _Firebird_ is an expensive work to produce; there are numerous scenes, each requiring its own setting and a large complement of costumes. In order to help overcome some of the financial problems involved, I agreed with Ballet Theatre to contribute a certain sum to the cost of production. I shall have something more to say about this a bit later.

As for the work itself, I can only say that the conception and the performance were infinitely superior to that which, in these latter days, is given by the New York City Ballet, to which organization, as a gesture, I gave the entire production for a mere token payment so far as the original costs to me were concerned.

Under my contractual arrangements with Ballet Theatre, the organization was obligated to provide a new second ballet for the season. I felt _Firebird_ had great audience-drawing possibilities. Ballet Theatre insisted _Firebird_ was too expensive to produce and countered with the suggestion that Antony Tudor would stage a work on the musical base of Bartok’s _Concerto for Orchestra_. While this work would have been acceptable to me, I could discover no evidence that it was in preparation.

Pursuing the matter of _Firebird_, Ballet Theatre informed me they were not in a position to expend more than $15,000 in any production. I suggested they prepare careful estimates on the cost of _Firebird_. This was done--at least, they showed me what purported to be estimates--and these indicated the costs would be something between $17,000 and $20,000. Therefore, in order to ease their financial burden, I offered to pay the costs of the production in excess of $15,000, but not to exceed $5,000. And so it was, at last, settled.

We had all agreed on a distinguished Russian painter, resident in Hollywood, a designer of reputation, who not only had prepared a work for Ballet Theatre, but whose contributions to ballet and opera with other organizations had been considerable.

Despite these arrangements, as time went on, there were definite indications that _Firebird_ would not be ready for the opening date at the Metropolitan Opera House, which had been agreed upon. No activity concerning it was apparent, and Adolph Bolm, its choreographer, was still in Hollywood. On the 15th September, I addressed an official letter to Ballet Theatre concerning the delay.

While no reply to this was forthcoming, I subsequently learned that, without informing the original designer who had been engaged and contracted to design the scenery and costumes, and who had finished his task and had turned his designs over to the scene painters, without informing the choreographer, without informing me, Ballet Theatre had surreptitiously engaged another designer, who also was at work on the same subject. We were now faced with two productions of the same work which would, of course, require payment.

A telephone call from Ballet Theatre to one of my staff, however, added the interesting information that _Firebird_ (in any production) would not be presented until I paid them certain moneys. The member of my staff who received this message, quite rightly refused to accept the message, and insisted it should be in writing.

It was not until the 23rd October, the day before the work was scheduled to be produced, that Oliver Smith, of the Ballet Theatre direction, threatened officially to delay the production of _Firebird_ until I paid them the sum they demanded. In other words, Ballet Theatre would not present the Stravinsky work, and it would not open, unless I paid them $11,824.87 towards its costs. These unsubstantiated costs included those of _both_ productions, all in the face of my definite limitation of $5,000 to be paid on _one_ production, since it was impossible to imagine that there would be _two_ of them.

Here was an ultimatum. The Metropolitan Opera House was already sold out to an audience expecting to see the new _Firebird_. All-out advertising and promotion had been directed towards that event. The ultimatum was, in effect, no money, no production.

It was, in short, a demand for money under duress, for which there is a very ugly word. At any rate, here was a _bona fide_ dispute, a matter to be discussed; and I suggested that Ballet Theatre submit the matter to arbitration, both disputants agreeing, of course, to be bound by the arbiter’s decision.

Lucia Chase, Oliver Smith, and Ballet Theatre’s new general manager refused to submit the matter to arbitration. The ultimatum remained: no money, no performance. The sold-out house had been promised _Firebird_. The public was entitled to see it.

I paid them $11,824.87, the sum they demanded, under protest, noting this money was demanded and paid under duress. _Firebird_ had its first performance the next night, as scheduled. Meanwhile, the dress-rehearsal that afternoon had been marked by a succession of scenes that can only be characterized as disgraceful, the whole affair being conducted in an atmosphere of tensity, ill-feeling, carping, with every possible obstacle being placed in the way of a satisfactory performance and devoid of any spirit of cooperation.

It soon became apparent to me that the troubles attendant upon the _Firebird_ production were merely symptomatic of something much larger, something much more sinister; something that was, in effect, a conspiracy to break the contract between us, a contract which was to continue for yet another season.

I learned through reliable sources that Ballet Theatre was surreptitiously attempting to secure bookings on their own with some of the local managers with whom I had booked them in the past, and with whom I was endeavoring to make arrangeents for them for the ensuing season. On the 28th February, I served official notice on the directorate of Ballet Theatre calling upon them to cease this illegal and unethical practice, and, at the same time, notified all managers of my contract with the organization.

It was early in our 1946 spring engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House, and I was working alone one evening in my office. It was late, the staff having long since left, and I continued at my desk until it was time for me to leave for the Metropolitan Opera House. I had not dined, intending to have a bite in Sherry’s Bar during one of the intervals. As I was crossing the by now deserted and partly darkened lower lobby of my office building, a stranger lunged forward from the shadows and thrust a sheaf of papers into my hand, then hurried into the street. Surprised, astonished, puzzled, I returned to my office to examine them.

The papers were a summons and complaint from Ballet Theatre. Although my contract with the organization had another year still to run, Lucia Chase and Oliver Smith were attempting to cancel the contract in mid-season. The grounds on which the action was based, as were subsequently proved, had no basis in fact.

But the company was slipping. It had no policy, no one capable of formulating or maintaining one. It was losing valuable members of its personnel, some of whom could no longer tolerate the whims and capriciousness of “Dearie,” as Chase was dubbed by many in the company. Jerome Robbins had gone his way. Dorati, who gave the organization the only musical integrity and authority it had, had departed. Others, I knew, were soon to be on their way. Dry rot was setting in. As matters stood, with the direction as it was, I had no assurance of any permanent survival for it. The company continued from day to day subject to the whims of Lucia Chase. The result was insecurity for the dancers, with all of them working with a weather-eye peeled for another job. One more season of this company, I felt, and I would be responsible for dragging a corpse about the country, unless, of course, I should myself become a corpse.

Ballet Theatre’s lawyers and my trusted counsel of many years’ standing, Elias Lieberman, arranged a settlement of our contract. Among its clauses was a proviso that the properties for _Firebird_ remained my property, together with a cash payment to me of $12,000.

When the final papers were signed, we all shook hands. The parting between us may be described as “friendly.”

* * * * *

What the future of Ballet Theatre may be, I have no way of knowing. I am not a prophet; I am a manager. Ballet Theatre’s subsequent career has not been particularly eloquent; not especially fortunate. There has been a period when there was no ballet season, with the decision to spend a “sabbatical” coming so late that many artists were left with no employment at a time of the year when all other possibilities for work with other companies had been exhausted. My own feeling, while wishing them well, is that, so long as Ballet Theatre continues to have no categorical policy or practice, and so long as it attempts to continue with expediency dictating its equivocal programme, its future is circumscribed. It is an axiom that a ballet company’s character is determined by the personality of its director.

However many collaborators Miss Chase may have on paper, Ballet Theatre is and will remain her baby. Co-directors, advisory boards, even the tax-exempt, non-profit organization called Ballet Theatre Foundation, formed in 1947, as a “sponsoring” group, do not alter the fact that Miss Chase is its sponsor. She pays the piper and the organization will dance to his melody. Sponsoring groups of the type I have mentioned have little value or meaning today. Ballet will not achieve health by dripping economic security down from the top. The theory that propping can be done by this method of dripping props from the top, does not mean from the top of ballet, but, hopefully, from the top of the social and financial worlds.

Healthy ballet cannot come, in my opinion, from being treated as an outlet or excuse for parties, nor from parties as an adjunct to ballet. The patronage of the social world in such organizations is practically meaningless today. It was useful, in bygone days, to have a list of fancy names out of the Blue Book as patrons. The large paying audience which ballet must have, and which I have developed through the years, certainly pays no attention to social patronage today. As a matter of fact, I suspect they resent it. The only people conceivably impressed by such a list of names would be a handful of social climbers and society columnists. The only patrons worth the ink to print their names are those who pay for tickets at the box-office, average citizens, even as you and I.

Ballet cannot pay for itself, for new productions, for commissioned works, by its box-office takings, any more than can opera or symphony orchestras. The only future I can see is some form of Government subsidy for ballet and the other arts. Some of our leading spirits in the fields of art are opposed to this idea. This is difficult for me to understand. I cannot conceive how there could be any hesitancy on that score. We know that in Great Britain and in most countries of Europe the arts, including ballet, are subsidized by the Government. These countries are not Communist-dominated. Here in the United States many big businesses are subsidized by the Government in one form or another, at one time or another. There are the railways, the airlines, the shipping companies, the mine subsidies, the oil subsidies--and the something like twenty-seven-and-one-half percent deduction allowed annually on new buildings erected is also a form of subsidy.

In the United States only the arts and the artists are taboo when it comes to Government help. I do not suggest that any of the arts should be dependent upon charity, either by individuals or foundations. I feel it is the plain duty of Government and of the lawmakers to finance and subsidize the arts: ballet, orchestras, opera, painters, sculptors, writers, composers.

A country with the tremendous wealth we have should not have to depend on charity or hobbyists for the advancement of culture and cultural activities.

Since we still lack what I feel is the only proper form of cultural subsidy, we needs must get on as best we can with the private hobbyist support. In this respect, Lucia Chase has been an extremely generous sponsor of Ballet Theatre. I have said that a ballet company’s character is determined by the personality of its director. I should like to add, by the personality of its sponsor as well. Let us look at the personality of Lucia Chase.

With a fortune compounded in unequal parts of Yonkers Axminster and Waterbury Brass, her largess has been tossed with what has seemed akin to reckless abandon. A lady of “middle years,” she was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, one of several children of a member of the Chase Brass Company clan. A cultured lady, she went to the “right” finishing school, did the “right” things, and, it is said, early evinced an interest in singing and in the theatre. She married Thomas Ewing, to whom the sobriquet, “the Axminster carpet tycoon,” has been applied. On his death, Miss Chase was left with a fortune and two sons. Her distraction over the loss of her husband, so it is said, drove her to an early love as a possible means of assuaging her grief, viz., the dance. She took ballet lessons from Mikhail Mordkin; financed the newly formed Mordkin Ballet; in 1937, became its _prima ballerina_. So far as the record reveals, her debut was made in the Brass City of her birth, in no less a role than the Princess Aurora in _The Sleeping Beauty_.

As a dancer, she is an excellent comedienne; yet for years she fancied herself as a classical _ballerina_. Her insistence on dancing in such ballets as _The Sleeping Beauty_, _Giselle_, _Pas de Quatre_, _Petroushka_, _Princess Aurora_, and most of all, _Les Sylphides_, was so regrettable that it raises the question that, if she is so unconscious of her own limitations as a dancer, what are her qualifications for the directorship of a ballet company?

At the beginning of every venture, at the inception of every new idea, Lucia Chase bursts with a remarkable, pulsating enthusiasm. Then, after a time, turning a deaf ear to the voice of experience, and discovering to her astonishment that things have not worked out as she expected, she sulks, tosses all ideas of policy aside, and then turns impatiently and impulsively to something that is in the way of a new adventure. Off she goes on a new tack. Eagerly and rashly she grasps frantically at the next idea or suggestion forthcoming from any one who is, at that moment, in favor. So, she thinks, this time I have got it!... The pattern repeats itself endlessly and expensively.

It started thus, with her financing of the Mordkin Ballet, before the days of Ballet Theatre. With the Mordkin Ballet, aside from financing it, she danced; danced the roles of only the greatest _ballerinas_. This pleasure she had. So far as operating a ballet company is concerned, she still leaps about without a policy, and each time the result seems unhappily to follow the same disappointing pattern.

Above all, Lucia Chase has what amounts to sheer genius for taking the wrong advice and for surrounding herself with, for the most part, inexperienced, unqualified, and mediocre advisers. Her most successful years were those when, by happy chance rather than by any design, the organization was managed and directed by the able J. Alden Talbot, informed gentleman of taste and business ability. It was during the Talbot regime that Miss Chase had her smallest deficits and Ballet Theatre attained its period of highest achievement.

When left to her own devices, Miss Chase is, so far as policy is concerned, uncertain, undetermined, irresolute, and meandering. The future of Ballet Theatre as a serious institution in our cultural life is questionable, in my opinion, because Miss Chase, after all these years, has not yet learned how to conduct or discipline a ballet company; has not learned that important policy decisions are not made because of whims. Because of these things, the organization as it stands, possesses no real and firm basis for sound artistic achievement, progress, or permanence. There is no indication of personality, or color, or any real authority in the company’s conduct. More and more there are indications or intimations of some sort of middle-of-the-road policy--if it really is policy and not a temporary whim; even so there is no indication whatsoever of the destination towards which the vehicle is bound.

With lavish generosity, Lucia Chase has spent fantastic sums of money on Ballet Theatre and on its predecessor, the Mordkin Ballet. Since Ballet Theatre is a non-profit organization and corporation, a substantial part of this money may be said to be the taxpayer’s money, since it is tax-exempt. Since the ultimate aim of the organization has not been attained, since it has not assumed aesthetic responsibility, or respected vital tradition, or preserved significant masterpieces of every style, period, and origin, as does an art museum, and as was announced and avowed to be its intention; since it has not succeeded in educating the masses for ballet; it must be borne in mind that the remission of taxes in such cases is largely predicated upon the educational facets of such an organization whose taxes are remitted.

I would be the last person to deny that Miss Chase has made a contribution to ballet in our time. To do so would be ridiculous. But I do insist that, whatever good she has done, almost invariably she has negated it and contradicted it by an impulsive capriciousness.

11. Indecisive Interlude: De Basil’s Farewell and A Pair of Classical Britons

With Ballet Theatre gone its own way, I was placed in a serious predicament. According to a long established and necessary custom, bookings throughout the country are made at least a season in advance. This is imperative in order that theatres, halls, auditoriums may be properly engaged and so that the local managers may arrange their series, develop their promotional campaigns, sell their tickets, thus reducing to as great an extent as possible the element of risk and chance involved.

Since my contract with Ballet Theatre had had one more year to run, the transcontinental bookings for the Ballet Theatre company had been made for the entire season. It was necessary for me to keep faith with the local managers who had built their seasons around ballet and, since local managers have faith both in me and in the quality of the ballet I present, I was on a spot. The question was: what to do?

Something had to be done to fulfil my obligations. I had no regrets about the departure of Ballet Theatre, other than that personal wrench I always feel at parting company with something to which I have given so much of myself. The last weeks with Ballet Theatre added nothing but trouble. There was a ludicrous contretemps in the nation’s capital. Jascha Horenstein, for some reason known only to himself, put down his baton before the beginning of the long coda at the end of _Swan Lake_, and walked out of the pit. As he departed, he left both the dancers and the National Symphony Orchestra players suspended in mid-air, with another five minutes left for the climax of the ballet. As a consequence, the performance ended in a debacle.

Matters balletic were in a bad way. It is times such as these that present me with a challenge. There is no easy solution; and frequently, almost usually, such solutions as there are, are reached by trial and error. This was no exception.

I began the trial and error period by building up, as an experiment, the Markova-Dolin company, with a group of dancers, including André Eglevsky and soloists, together with a _corps de ballet_ largely composed of Ballet Theatre personnel that had broken away because of dissatisfaction of one sort or another. In addition to Markova, Dolin, and Eglevsky, the company included Margaret Banks, a Sadler’s Wells trained dancer from Vancouver, Roszika Sabo, Wallace Siebert, and others, with young John Taras as choreographer and ballet-master. The reader who has come this far will realize some of the problems involved in building up a repertoire. Here we were, starting from scratch.

The two basic works were a _Giselle_, staged by Dolin, with Markova in her best role, and _Swan Lake_. In staging the second act of _Swan Lake_, Dolin used a setting designed by the Marquessa de Cuevas for the International Ballet. Dolin also mounted the last act of _The Nutcracker_. John Taras staged a suite of dances from Tchaikowsy’s _Eugene Onegin_; and the balance of the repertoire was made up from various classical excerpts.

Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit were selected as try-out towns in the spring of 1946. The celestial stars that hung over the experiment cannot be called benign. The well-worn adage that it never rains but it pours, was hardly ever better instanced than in this case. It was the spring of the nation-wide railway strike, and the dates of our performances coincided with it. By grace of the calendar we managed to get the company to Milwaukee, where the company’s first performances were given at the old Pabst Theatre. By interurban street-car and trucks we got the company to the Chicago Opera House. There the difficulties multiplied. Owing to the firm restrictions placed upon the use of electricity in public places, in order to conserve the dwindling coal supply, it was impossible to light the Opera House auditorium or foyers, which were swathed in gloom, broken only by faint spots of dull glow emanating from a few oil lanterns. The current for the stage lighting was supplied from a United States Coast Guard vessel, which we had, with great difficulty, persuaded to move along the river side of the Opera House, to the engine-room of which vessel we ran cables from the stage. The ship could generate just enough “juice” for stage purposes only. That “just enough” might have been precisely that in computed wattage; but it was direct current. Our lighting equipment operated on alternating current, and, by the time the “juice” was converted, the actual power was limited to the point that, try as the technical staff did, the best we were able to obtain was a sort of passable low visibility on the stage.

To add to the general fun, the Coast Guard vessel broke loose from its moorings, floated across the Chicago River, destroyed some pilasters of the _Chicago Daily News_ and jammed the Randolph Street drawbridge of the City of Chicago, adding to the general confusion, to say nothing of the costs.

When it came time for the company to move to Detroit, no trains were running, and buses and trucks would not cross state lines. It took some master-minding on the part of our staff to arrange to have the company, baggage cars and all, attached to a freight train, which was carrying permitted perishable fruits and vegetables. In Detroit, the slump had set in. The feeling of depression engendered by the darkened buildings and streets, the dimly-lighted theatres, the murk of stygian restaurants, together with the fact that the Detroit engagement had to be played at one of the “legitimate” theatres rather than at the Masonic Temple which, for years, had been the local home for ballet, played havoc with the engagement; people, bewildered by the situation, one which was as darkness is to light, were discouraged and daunted. They remained away from the theatre in droves and the losses were fantastic.

Using the word in the best theatrical sense and tradition, it was a catastrophe. Perhaps it was as well that it was; somehow I cannot entirely reject the conviction that things more often than not work out for the best, for as the company and the repertoire stood, it would not fill the bill. Nor was there anything like sufficient time to build either a company or a repertoire.

The projected Markova-Dolin company was placed in mothballs. The problems, so far as the ensuing season was concerned, remained critical.

The Markova-Dolin combination was to emerge later in a different form. For the present it marked time, while I pondered the situation, with no solution in sight.

At this crucial moment an old friend, Nicholas Koudriavtzeff, entered the picture. An American citizen of long standing, by birth he was a member of an old aristocratic Russian family. His manner, his life, his thinking are Continental. A man of fine culture, he is an idealistic business man of the theatre and concert worlds; a gentle, kind, able person, with an irresistible penchant for getting himself involved, for swimming in waters far beyond his depth, largely because of his idealism, together with his warmheartedness and his gentleness. It is this very gentleness, coupled with a certain softness, that makes it almost impossible for him to say “no” to anyone.

He is married to a former Diaghileff dancer and de Basil soloist, Tatiana Lipkovska. They divide their homes between New York and Canada, where he is one of the leading figures in Montreal’s musical-balletic life, and where, on a gracious farm, he raises glorious flowers, fruits, and vegetables for the Montreal market. His wife, in her ballet school, passes on to aspiring pupils the sound tradition of the classical dance. Koudriavtzeff had been mixed up in ballet, in one capacity or another, for years. There was a time when he suffered from that contagious and deplorable infliction: ballet gossip, in which he was a practiced practitioner; but there are indications that he is well on his way to recovery. He is a warm friend and a good colleague.

Koudriavtzeff and I have something, I suspect, in common. Attracted and attached to something early in life, a concept is formed, and we become a part of that idea. From this springs a sort of congenital optimism, and we are inclined to feel that, whatever the tribulations, all will somehow work out successfully and to the happiness of all concerned. In this respect, I put myself into the same category. I strongly suspect I am infected with the same virus as Koudriavtzeff.

One of my real pleasures is to linger over dinner at home. It is no particular secret that I am something of a gourmet and I know of no finer or more appropriate place to enjoy good food than at home. So, it is with something of the sense of a rite that I try, as often as the affairs of an active life permit, sometime between half-past six and seven in the evening to have a quiet dinner at home with Mrs. Hurok.

The telephone bell, that prime twentieth century annoyance, interrupted, as it so often does, the evening’s peace.

“Won’t they let you alone?” was Mrs. Hurok’s only comment.

It was Koudriavtzeff.

“Call me back in half an hour.” I said.

He did.

“I should like to talk with you, Mr. Hurok,” he said in the rather breathless approach that is a Koudriavtzeff conversational characteristic.

Since he was already talking, I suggested he continue--over the telephone. But no, this was not possible, he said. He must talk to me privately; something very secret. Could he come to my home, there and then? Was it a matter of business? I inquired. It was. I demurred. I had had enough of business for one day.

However, there was such urgency in Koudriavtzeff’s voice, after making due allowance for an almost perpetual urgency with Koudriavtzeff, even in discussing the weather, that I agreed. He must have telephoned from a booth round the corner, for Koudriavtzeff arrived, breathless, almost as soon as I had put down the instrument.

We sat down over a glass of tea. For a few minutes the conversation concerned itself with generalities. Since I did not feel especially social, I brought the talk around to particularities.

“Well, what can I do for you?” I inquired.

The story came pouring out like water from a burst dam. It developed, as I pieced it together, that Koudriavtzeff was trying to make certain bookings for de Basil’s Original Ballet Russe on the way back from South America. Although there were some bookings, he had not been able to secure sufficient dates and, under the arrangement he had made with the “Colonel,” Koudriavtzeff was obliged to deliver. That was not all. Not only was he short with dates; he did not have the means with which to make the necessary campaign, even if he had obtained the dates.

I pondered the situation.

“Is de Basil in South America?” I asked.

“No,” replied Koudriavtzeff. “He is here in New York.”

Somehow, I could not regard this as good news.

I pondered the matter again.

After all I had gone through with this man, I asked myself, why should I continue to listen to Koudriavtzeff? If ever there was a time when I should have said, firmly, unequivocally “to hell with ballet,” it was at this moment. But I continued to listen.

With one ear I was listening to the insistent refrain: “To hell with ballet.” With the other, I was harking to my responsibilities to the local managers, to my lease with the Metropolitan Opera House.

Koudriavtzeff proceeded with his rapid-fire chatter. From it one sentence came sharp and dear:

“Will you please be so kind, Mr. Hurok? Will you, please, see de Basil?”

It could have been that I was not thinking as clearly and objectively as I should have been at that moment.

I agreed.

The next evening, de Basil, Koudriavtzeff, and I met.

Mrs. Hurok sounded the warning.

“I don’t object to your seeing him,” she said, “but you’re not going in with him again?”

The meetings were something I kept from the knowledge of my office for several days.

As I have pointed out before, de Basil was a Caucasian. The Caucasians and the Georgians have several qualities in common, not the least of which is the love of and desire for intrigue, coupled with infinite patience, never-flagging energy, and nerves of steel. It was perfectly possible for de Basil to sit for days and nights on end, occasionally uttering a few words, silent for long, long periods, but waiting, patiently waiting. It is these alleged virtues that make the Caucasians the most efficient and successful members of those bodies whose job it is to practice the delicate art of the third-degree: the O.G.P.U., the N.K.V.D.

I had agreed to meet de Basil, and now I was in for it. There was one protracted meeting after another, with each seeming to merge, without perceptible break, into the next. The “Colonel” had a “heart,” which he coddled; he brought with him his hypochondriacal collection of “pills,” some of which were for his “heart,” some for other uses. With their help, he managed to keep wide awake but impassive through night after night. Discussion, argument; argument, discussion. As the conferences proceeded, de Basil reinforced his “pills” with his lawyers, this time the omnipresent Lidji and Asa Sokoloff.

No one could be more aware of the “Colonel’s” inherent avoidance of honesty or any understandable code of ethics than I, yet he invariably commenced every conversation with: “Now if you will only be sincere and serious with me....”

Always it was the other fellow who was insincere.

Nearly all these meetings took place in the upper Fifth Avenue home of a friend of de Basil’s, a former _Time_ magazine associate editor, where he was a house-guest. I cannot imagine what sort of home life he and his wife could have had during this period when, what with the long sessions and the constant comings and goings, the place bore a stronger resemblance to a committee room adjacent to an American political convention than a quiet, conservative Fifth Avenue home. Not only was the place crowded with antiques, for de Basil’s host was a “collector,” but the “Colonel” had piled these pieces one on the top of another to turn the place into a warehouse. It was during the after-war shortage of food in Europe, whither the “Colonel” was repairing as soon as he could.

Here, in his host’s home, the “Colonel” had opened his own package and shipping department. Box upon box, crate upon crate of bulky foods: mostly spaghetti. All sorts of foods: cost cheap, bulk large.

This was the first time in my ballet career that I had written down a repertoire on cases of spaghetti. As these meetings continued, and took the toll of human patience and endurance, we were joined by my loyal adjutant, Mae Frohman, who was served a sumptuous dish of not particularly tasty but certainly very filling Russo-Caucasian-Georgian-Bulgarian negotiations.

It is not to be supposed that this period was brief. It went on for nearly three weeks, day and night.

One night progress was made; but before morning we were back where we started. Miss Frohman begged me to call off the entire business, to get out of it while the getting was good. The more she saw and heard, the more certain she was that her intuition was right; this was something to be given a wide berth. But I was in it now. There was no going back.

Time, however, was running out. I had booked passage to fly to Europe. The date approached, as dates have a way of doing, until we reached the day before my scheduled departure. Mrs. Hurok remonstrated with me over the whole business.

“What good can come from this?” she protested. “Are you mad?”

Perhaps I was.

“What are you trying to do?” she went on. “Trying to kill yourself?”

Perhaps I was.

It was not a matter of trying; but it could be.